Fright Night 2, or, the remake of the remake of Fright Night

Okay, so I knew going into Fright Night 2: New Blood that none of the original cast members were coming back and all the characters were being portrayed by different actors. Now, unless I’m completely forgetting something and all the characters from the 2011 remake lived and had their memories washed out, this “sequel” pretends the first never happened and takes Charley Brewster, his girl Amy, Evil Ed, and Peter Vincent and repeats the same story—setting it in Romania, with a female vampire named “Gerri” instead of “Jerry” (Colin Farrell’s name in the first film).

Seriously. Fright Night 2: New Blood is a combination of the remake of the original 1988 sequel and just a remake of Fright Night in general. From his window, Charlie watches the vampire living across from him in action (this time, she’s in a hotel across the way). Someone naïve in his life invites the vampire in. Ed becomes Evil Ed. The vampire kidnaps Amy. Charley tries to get a resistant Peter Vincent to save the day.

All the characters are completely new to vampirism in this flick. There’s no sign that they’ve done this before, no familiarity between Peter Vincent and Charley, and no mention of “Gerri” being Jerry’s sister, which was the plot of the original sequel from 1988 (in which her name was Regine).

But I must say, I kind of liked Fright Night 2. A lot. It had a very classic 1980s teen vampire flick feel to it, really keeping with the tone of the original films and focusing on a very small, core group to create a sense of isolation. The only thing it is missing that the original Fright Night 2 had was that freaky slow-mo roller skating drag queen!

It also doesn’t offer much in the way of humor until the end, when the new guy portraying Peter Vincent gets the most screen time. He totally rox in this film. He’s hot and funny. And Gerri Dandrige is played by Jaime Murray, who has quite the horror resume: The Deaths of Ian Stone, Botched, Dexter, Devil’s Playground—and she was on the shows Warehouse 13 and Ringer. She also rox in this film.

There’s also cool Omen-esque music, a blood bath scene reminiscent of Hostel 2, a flashback in graphic novel form (cool), a suspenseful subway confrontation, and a freaky as hell chase through the underground tunnels, with Gerri doing a hall sweep that brings to mind Angela from Night of the Demons. On top of all that, the final confrontation has one surprise after another, and feels very From Dusk Till Dawn.

I actually think I might like Fright Night 2: New Blood better than Fright Night remake.